


Aftermath

by orphan_account



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Demon!Dean, FYI I cried while writing this, I want you safe k friend, I'm dead serious if you're triggered by suicide or giving up or starving please stay away, Suicidal Castiel, Triggers, just saying, season ten fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-05
Updated: 2014-08-05
Packaged: 2018-02-11 23:20:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,078
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2086950
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Cas was broken. He knew it, and Sam knew it too, but Sam had his own problems to deal with. Cas was broken, (when had he started referring to himself as Cas?), and there wasn't much chance of him being fixed. </p><p>Because Dean was gone.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Aftermath

**Author's Note:**

> I apologize.
> 
> Also: I am fully aware that the characterization is off, Cas is a BAMF who don't need no man, blah blah blah yeah ok. Fight me.
> 
> ALSO: I had Towers by Little Mix playing on repeat the entire time I wrote, so if you want the full experience.....yeah. 
> 
> Carry on.

Cas was broken. He knew it, and Sam knew it too, but Sam had his own problems to deal with. Cas was broken, (when had he started referring to himself as Cas?), and there wasn't much chance of him being fixed. Because Dean was gone. Very gone. Gone where Cas couldn't find him, not with his dwindling angel juice. Dean, the Righteous Man, the one who had called Castiel-the-angel his best friend, and for whom Cas-the-human had felt things that no angel could feel. Dean, who had taught Castiel-the-angel everything he knew about humanity, and who had kicked Cas-the-human to the curb for his brother, yet come to find him as soon as Sam was out of danger. Dean, who had told Castiel-the-angel that he was family, and meant it. Because family didn't end in blood, like he had said so many times.

 

Sam was family too, at least that's what Sam said. But not like Dean. Nothing like Dean. Sam was . . . Sam was just different. And he was just as broken as Cas now, maybe more. As far as Cas knew, Sam hadn't been sober since . . . well. It had been several days. Weeks. Something. It was hard to keep time in the room Cas was in, Dean's room. It didn't have any windows. Cas hadn't moved much, just sat on the floor next to the bed, sheets still rumpled with tiny bloodstains from where Sam had laid his brother out as beat he could before retiring to the Bunker's liquor closet. He didn't want to touch the bed too much, like if he left it alone, Dean might come back.

 

In his heart, or Jimmy's heart, (even though it had been his for years), he knew Dean wasn't coming back. Knew he would never see the mocking smirk, or that soft smile he wore when he thought no one was looking, again. He'd never get one of Dean's awkward hugs, or be the one to make him laugh.

 

Cas dropped his head down to his knees, drawn up close to his chest. He had alternated between that and staring blankly at Dean's wall, only switching when his neck started cramping; yet another reminder that he wasn't much of an angel anymore. His stomach gnawed at him, feeling like the leviathans were back inside, slowly eating him away to an empty husk. He ignored it. Food was something he didn't particularly want anymore. And he knew, if he didn't eat for long enough, he would die. Humans were like that, and he was more human every day. What did he have to live for, anyway? Dean was gone. Sam hadn't ever needed him, not really. And heaven had made it very clear that he had no place there.

 

He could die. This was something he was just beginning to fully realize, and he felt like it should probably worry him a little more than it did. He just felt numb. He had lived a long time, and who would miss him? Sam? He had outlived or killed all of his friends, (and that hurt, just a little bit). Maybe it would be easier to just . . . let go.

 

Maybe he'd have his own heaven, now that he was human, (or almost). Dean would be there, of course, and he'd be happy. His eyes would sparkle, and he'd crack his horrible jokes and mock Cas and maybe sometimes he'd give Cas his awkward hugs or laugh at him or with him, and Sam would be there because he is Cas' friend too, and Dean doesn't know how to be without his brother and the three of them would be happy. Maybe they'd visit Bobby, and Ellen and Jo and Ash and all of their other friends, even though Cas didn't know them very well. Dean would want to, and Cas wanted Dean to be happy.

 

A faint smile tugged at Cas' cracked lips, and for the first time, he felt the first tiny trickle of emotion worm its way through the cracks in him, choking him and making his dry eyes burn. He hoped Dean was in his heaven right now, happy. Hoped he was laughing, getting pleasantly drunk with his brother, cracking jokes and not worrying about saving the world. Maybe Cas himself would be there, in the background.

 

He didn't put much hope in that, though. He had done too much wrong to truly believe that he would be prominent in Dean Winchester's heaven. That didn't matter, though, because if life without Cas was what would make Dean happy, Cas would willingly let go.

 

It was too late for that, though, because Dean was gone and Cas was broken and Sam was broken too but in a different way and Cas thought, just maybe, he was ready to die.

 

His neck cricked again, so he lifted his head to rest against the side of the bed with a dull thud, and he stared at the wall again and wondered how long it would be before his body gave out.

 

***

 

Sam was broken. He knew it, Cas probably knew it, but he hadn't seen the angel - human? - since that one bottle of fireball about two, six, ten days ago. He didn't know where Cas had gone, and he was a little busy wallowing in his alcohol and guilt to worry too much about him. There was a niggling thought in the back of his head that sounded vaguely like Bobby, and it was swearing vehemently at him, _you stupid idjit Cas needs you,_ but it was easy enough to push aside. He thought he deserved a break, a little hiatus from giving a fuck, because for what seemed like the thousandth time, his brother had died in his arms, and it still hurt as much as the first time, and the second, and the hundredth. He didn't even have Dean's body this time, and that was also something he should probably be worrying about but he was finding it a lot easier to just drink until the world went dark and just not think.

 

He'd run out of alcohol eventually, he knew that. And then he'd have to get up and make the choice to either buy more, or force himself to move on. Maybe buy a cabin in some woods somewhere, change his name, bury this life so far down he would never think about it again, what do you mean he had a brother once, ghosts aren't real, and isn't winchester a brand of gun?

 

Yeah, that would be what he had to do. Because what were the chances of Dean actually being brought back this time? Zero. Cas didn't have any mojo, and it wasn't like they had any other friendly angels popping up like whack-a-moles and there was no way Crowley would give him up, not after they had gotten all buddy buddy. And where was Cas, anyway? Sam was fairly sure he had over this in his musings, but it was worth a revisit, because Cas had done his disappearing act like always and hadn't even given Sam a thought, sitting in the dark with a half-empty bottle of wine in his hand (he had drank through the good stuff).

 

It just wasn't _fair_.

 

Where was Dean when Sam needed him? The wine wasn't working as well as the rotgut, and Sam knew he was too drunk to even try to make it to the Impala and maybe if he yelled loud enough Dean would come and give him a hand, call him a dumbasses and shove a glass of water at him and make him go to bed because that's what big brothers did. Sam was vaguely aware that he was yelling, roaring Dean's name into the silence of the bunker, and it was too loud, was going to break the walls around him and the bunker was going to collapse but he couldn't stop because maybe Dean would hear him and he just wanted his brother.

 

He stumbled to his feet, bottle slipping from nerveless fingers and shattering on the floor. He was crying now, all the tears that had been trapped for - how many days now? - escaping at once, like a dam had burst and now Sam was going to drown in the flood. He felt like he was drowning, lurching towards the hallway that Dean's room was on, calling his name, Dean, Dean, and he could hardly see past the emotions and _no chick flick moments, Sammy_ , but he couldn't help it. He hit his shoulder hard against Dean's doorframe, then clutched it to keep from face planting on the floor, because there was Cas and he was on the floor and not moving and there was blood on Dean's sheets and Cas was too pale and he _wasn't moving_ and Sam didn't know what he was supposed to do, because he was very, very drunk and Dean was gone and there was blood on the sheets and _Cas wasn't moving_. He didn't sit down as much as he collapsed, dully feeling the pain as his tailbone cracked hard against the concrete floor. "Cas," he said, slurring because his tongue wouldn't cooperate.

 

Cas didn't move, just sat there with his knees pulled up to his chest looking way too small without his trench coat and his head leaned back against the bed, and, oh god, Sam couldn't tell if he was breathing or not so he scooted over to the bed on his ass because he really didn't think he would be able to manage standing up. "Cas!" He said again, a little louder, but not nearly as loud as he had been calling for Dean because his brother was dead, he remembered that now. He reached Cas and saw that his eyes were closed to he poked him in the arm, shook him a little, _nonono my fault no Cas not you too,_ clumsily felt for a pulse in his neck, his wrist, but his own heart was pounding too hard in his ears and he couldn't feel anything. "Cas?!" He shook him harder, Cas' head flopping around like that fish he had caught once when he was younger and something dark and foul rose up in Sam's chest to choke him.

 

"Nononono . . ." Sam moaned, wrapping his arms around Cas, pulling him close, rocking him back and forth _, no come back I don't have anyone else c'mon Cas please,_ and he was too light, didn't even register as a weight against Sam's chest. The tears came back, no matter how much Sam tried to push them back behind the dam because now he truly had no one left alive who cared if he lived or died.

 

He stayed there for a long time, on the floor next to Dean's bloodstained, empty bed with Cas in his arms, rocking back and forth, back and forth, and, seriously, how was he supposed to just get up and keep going? His head hurt and oh god, he was going to have to _burn Cas,_ because the last thing they needed was some vengeful almost-angel spirit in the bunker, though, to be fair, Sam wasn't ever coming back. Charlie could just stay in Oz, because he was going to leave here and bury everything and who even gave a damn if monsters were killing people?

 

Not him. He had lost everything. The world could just fuck itself.

 

***

 

Sam burned Cas early the next morning, wrapped up in his coat and an old sheet with the sun just barely peeking over the horizon. He was sitting too close to the fire, and he was slowly sweating through his layers with the smell of charred flesh soaking into his skin, but he was too bone-deep tired to move. His mind was busy constructing those walls Dean always swore by, _repress it Sammy, that's what we do_ , and slowly but surely he locked down unruly emotions and threw away the key, because what else was he supposed to do? As much as he wanted to, he couldn't drink the rest of his life away - and so help him, he was going to stay alive.

 

_Promise me, Sammy, you'll make a life for yourself._

 

He had fucked up, time and time again, with the demon blood and Stanford and purgatory and hell but this time he wouldn't. This time, he'd make Dean proud.

 

_Sure. Whatever, Dean. Go to sleep._

 

_Bitch._

 

_Shut up, jerk._

 

_***_

 

 _I'm proud of us_.

 

***

**Author's Note:**

> Ok, now that you're done with that massive bucket of angst and pain - who's up for a sequel? That's right, ladies and gentlemen and everything in between, depending on the reception of this one, there may or may not be a sequel in the making. 
> 
> Drop me a line and tell me what you think it should be about. Cas' heaven, maybe? Sam's recuperation? Dean's epic demonic man pain? Lemme know!


End file.
